Department of Defense workers will lose as much as 20 percent of their pay from late April through September if Congress fails to resolve the impending federal budget crisis, Pentagon officials said today.

The crisis is coming to a head March 1, when automatic spending cuts agreed to by Congress and the president as a means to spur agreement on federal deficit reduction will kick in unless a new plan or agreement is reached. Meanwhile, the Pentagon operates on last year’s lesser spending levels, and war-related costs have risen.

“We feel we don’t have any choice but to impose furloughs, even though we would much prefer not to do it,” Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale said at a Pentagon press conference. “We can’t do reductions in force, especially at this point in the year. They cost us money in this year because of unused leave and severance pay. So furloughs are really the only way we have to quickly cut civilian personnel funding.”

The impact on overall Defense Department operations would be “devastating,” said acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Jessica Wright. On civilian workers, she said, it would be “catastrophic.”

If triggered, the cuts will be consistent across the board, Hale said. “Essentially, all of our organizations that we have to furlough will do so … for about the same number of days.”

Key benefits will continue for furloughed workers, Wright said.

The actual furloughs would start no earlier than late April, Hale said.

Hale said there would be “very limited” exceptions to the furloughs. Dover Air Force Base spokeswoman 2nd Lt. Remoshay Nelson said leaders “are working to determine the impact” on the base’s 1,002 full-time civilians, but said they “cannot determine at this time what percentage of Dover’s civilians will be affected.”

The Delaware National Guard has a total of 401 federal technicians on the Army and Air sides who could be furloughed – a group that would lose a total of $5.3 million over the rest of the fiscal year, according to spokesman Army Lt. Col. Len Gratteri. But 82 of the Guard’s 106 state technicians, who are paid via a cooperative agreement between the federal government and Delaware, could also face furloughs, he said. Guard leaders are creating a list of recommended exemptions, which the services must approve.

Communities would feel the loss of spending power as furloughed employees cut back spending and federal contract options are not picked up, Hale and Wright said today.

Cuts would also affect the availability of on-base medical care, commissary hours, Department of Defense schools, suicide and sexual assault prevention programs and eventually, family programs and other items, Wright said.

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About this Blog

It’s all things military in Delaware: Dover AFB, the Army and Air National Guard and all veterans' issues - particularly VA health care and employer compliance with the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. Questions, concerns or story tips? Contact me at bmcmichael@delawareonline.com or 302-324-2812.

About the author

Bill McMichael came to The News Journal in 2012 after 12 years with Gannett’s Military Times newspaper family; he has covered the military, from the Pentagon to ships at sea, for more than two decades. He's written about the Navy’s Tailhook scandal; racial integration of the military; the punishment of a whistle-blowing Navy SEAL; naval operations at the outset of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; sex trafficking outside U.S. bases in South Korea; medical malpractice; and military law.